


stranger than a whirlwind

by firebrightblue



Category: Jonas Brothers, Jonas Brothers (RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Magic, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firebrightblue/pseuds/firebrightblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>five secret lives of nick jonas</p>
            </blockquote>





	stranger than a whirlwind

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for RPF incest and my id leaking everywhere.

**_i._ **

when our words desert us

 

It’s published under the name E.C. That’s it, just E.C. It’s a little clumsy in places, and it’s more than a little rough around the edges, but that just gives it the raw edge that brings the story together, the critics say. The jacket proclaims that E.C. is a “young writer currently living in New York City.”

_It’s a defining story about youth and isolation and religion and magic and growing up_ , the critics say. _It’s The Great American Incest Story_ , the media proclaims. _It’s immoral_ , the Christian Right fumes, but that just adds to the sales figures.

E.C. is a mystery, closely guarded by the publisher. All the proceeds from the book are divvied up and donated to various charities around the world. One of them is American Diabetes Association, but no one notices that.

 

 

 

**_ii._ **

sit and sing a spell

 

There’s power in music. Almost anyone Nick said that to would take it on face value, but he doesn’t mean it in the way that they take it. He means it literally. Nick can do things with music that no one else can. And that’s not ego — when he was eight, he hummed two bars and changed the color of his shirt from red to an ugly green.

It’s witchcraft. It’s magic. It’s unnatural, but he can do it as easily as breathing. As easily as singing. He never tells his parents. Or Kevin, for that matter, although he’s pretty sure Kevin knows anyway. Frankie doesn’t know either.

Joe knows, of course. Joe was the person he rushed to when he looked down and saw that his shirt was a different color. It’s their secret. They both know how they’re parents would react if they knew, and they’re both familiar enough with comic books to know what happens when _other people_ find out.

Nick uses it for little things, stupid things. Things that no one will notice. He reheats his coffee with a gentle scale, calls papers to him with a whistle. He learns that a soft coon can make him nearly unnoticeable, which is a God-send when he and Joe want to sneak around without the paparazzi for an hour.

One night, while they’re on tour and bouncing around on stage in front of ten thousand people, Joe misjudges one of his stunts and winds up in the crowd. It’s happened before, and only a few bruises to show for it, but Nick knows its different this time. He can tell by the way the band stumbles to a halt in the song and crowd writhes like a dying thing and the security takes so stupidly, stupidly long to make it. So Nick does something stupid himself, something dangerous. 

He’s done more than hum or a whistle to do magic, never more than the bare minimum. He never wanted to encourage this; it’s just another thing that makes him strange, that makes him wrong. But this is Joe, and he’s in danger, and Nick doesn’t think before grabbing the mic and belting out a wordless rush of power and sound that pushes back the people surrounding and touching his brother. 

Joe is holding his arm funny, and there’s a smear of blood on his face — from the fall or the people, Nick doesn’t know and Joe will never tell. Joe turns and meets his brother’s eyes, and then security finally swoops in and rushes him to safety. 

Nick turns his head and finds Kevin staring at him with an unreadable expression. He looks away.

 

 

 

**_iii._ **

deja vecu

 

He’s always known what he wants in life, because he’s always known where he’s going to be. He knows how this all ends. Not the little details — not who he’s dating or what the stock market is going to look like or what the weather will be. But the big things, the important things, like whether Joe will be there with him or whether he’ll win — those he sees. He knows.

Nick has always been ambitious. People consider it either a great virtue or a deep flaw. He doesn’t particularly care. He’s seen exactly where he’s going to end up, and he’s not going to stop until he gets there, his brother at his side. 

(He’s always said he was going to be president one day. No one really believes him until thirty years later.) 

 

 

 

**_iv._ **

with this bleeding ink

 

He doesn’t know if they count as lies, or it’s better or worse than lying about not having a preference between blondes and brunettes or implying that he’s only attracted to girls to begin with. They’re a set of secrets, of small, tiny secrets, that he hordes jealously, even after he’s of legal age. He just wants something that’s his, only his, only his and Joe’s, because he and Joe have no secrets.

Interview after interview, he doesn’t mention them, and maybe that’s a lie, but it’s not like he owes these people the truth. It’s not like they get the truth — not about who Nick or Kevin or Joe are dating, not about what their true plans are, not about whether or not they’re tired or worn out or fed up with touring and screaming fans who climb on stage and grab them when they shouldn’t.

So he has tattoos — not just the tattoo he gets later, when he’s past legal and it barely makes a blip across the entertainment news. He has tattoos that would have made headlines, had anyone found out about them in 2007, or 2008, or 2009, when he was fifteen and sixteen and seventeen and moody and still angry about his diabetes and his parents and his career. The first one, the one that started it all, is low on his hip, where it’s easily hidden away and masked. It wouldn’t have been scandalous, if it weren’t for his age at the time. 

It’s illegal to give a minor a tattoo, especially without parent permission. Which Nick definitely didn’t have. The tattoo artist had been older and female and literally _covered_ , from head to toe, in ink, and she hadn’t even asked to see his ID. To this day, he’s still unsure if she recognized him or not. It’s not like she’d go running to the media if she did — she’d have her license taken away at the very least, with possibly jail time on top of that.

Joe knows about it because he knew, when they’d driven through that tiny town on the back end of nowhere, on route to another event, and seen Nick staring at the dingy looking tattoo parlor. He met Nick’s eyes and nodded, just like that, and he covered for him so that Nick could slip away. He paid in cash, listened to the instructions the lady rattled off, and was on his way. It took less than two hours. 

The others followed over the years, all small and hide-able: his hips and his thighs. His torso, eventually, after he decided that covering up more was worth it. Joe knows about all of them; he’s touched each one, helped him hide them and take care of them while they were healing. 

Joe knows what each one is and what it means. His favorite is the first very first one, Nick’s first act of rebellion, and when he wants to make Nick smile despite himself, he hums it, going over the three bars Nick has tattooed.

“Very superstitious,” Joe will sing softly, and Nick will crack up.

 

 

 

**_v._ **

i love you more than i ever should

 

If there are whispers about the two of them, they don’t hear them. The media still sees them as pure, loving brothers, and they do they’re best to keep it that way — no holding hands in public, no kissing, as little inappropriate touching as they can manage. They live together, but they’re young and living away from their family; they have a ready-made excuse. 

It’s all very PG where anyone might see; they had an unusual adolescence, growing up crammed in next to each other in a hundred backseats and hotel rooms, always in each other’s pockets. Their lack of boundaries is charming, as long as everyone continues to assume they’re going to grow out of it.

(They won’t. What they have, what they work to keep so secret — it’s not the kind of thing one grows out of. They’re too far gone for that.)


End file.
